That Which You Seek
by Usemychopsticks
Summary: Reaching Erebor was the hard part; this should be easy (It isn't). Thorin searches and does not find.


Title: That Which You Seek

Summary: Reaching Erebor was the hard part; this should be easy (It isn't). Thorin searches and does not find.

Characters: Thorin, Fili, and Balin.

Notes/Warnings: Movie verse, but references events that will happen.

* * *

It is just as he remembered it, halls carved in glory and treasures forged in happiness, but there is a layer of dust over the former and the dragon stink still permeates in the latter. The fortune is divided and given duly, but he pushes past all that and delves as far as he can for that glisten, and the shine of the jewel his grandfather had almost thrown his life away for.

He had insisted it be placed in his throne, Thorin remembered.

He had insisted, and they had come and they had worshipped. Men and elves alike and their homage had added to the glisten and pride of their home, their masterpiece and this place was perfect and it was everything.

The Arkenstone had been the heart of Erebor, and after a while it had become the heart of Thror himself. And it was fitting because it was the heart of their home and their people, and everything they held dear and Thorin will have to let it become him as well, because he is their kind, and the king is their centerfold, and he has to has to hold, commandeer, and make sure it is never lost again, and—

This is the kind of man Fili will have to become, though he wishes less the sorrow and pain for his nephew.

(His sister's sons were born on the road, on different times in different inns on the varying kindness of two different innkeepers, though both were laid on straw, rather than cradles of fine iron. Born and conceived in homes that were not theirs)

"Uncle?" Fili's face is a frame of youth, a mirror that was once his, and the halls that they stand in will be his one day.

"Are you tired?" Yes, he is.

"No," he responds, for that is what a king should say, "I am not. Go to your brother, I'm sure he'll be digging through the caves and finding much to tell you."

His nephew suspects, but Thorin has taught him and he does what he's told. Subject obeying king. Thorin looks again, and every time his thoughts linger on the stone, the gold around him seems to dim just a bit more. He doesn't find it, but it has to be here, because it was his grandfather's and it is his and it _is _him and—

If the heart of his home, his mountain, rests close and in his hand does that make it impossible for it to be taken from him again?

When he digs it is not just for the wealth and value, it is for his home and his people and everything that was, is, and still belonged to all of them, and, just a bit, for himself (because he thinks he's earned the right to be a little bit selfish), for his soul and his heart. Thorin doesn't even turn when Balin calls him name, only when the older man's hand rests, a soft and kind pull back to the land of reality, does he finally turn.

"Thorin, it can wait till tomorrow. You should rest" his oldest friend has an understanding in his eyes, but even then he cannot fully comprehend the strings of need and desire pulling at the king's heart.

"No." He truly can't. "Go. I shall be fine."

"It'll still be here in the morning. You've brought us home, you've done enough." And then the conversation takes a turn to mirror that which they had at Bag End. Push no more, because you've done enough, but if he stops it will all slide back down.

"I have no choice." He repeats the same sentence, as a way of answering for a lack of anything else.

(When Thror's head hits the ground, it rolls. Azog is dragged back screaming into another home that they have lost, and the funeral pyres that day burn higher than the pillars that Smaug unleashed on Erebor before that.)

Thorin breathes, breath filled with a tired determination and self-imposed duty.

Thorin Oakenshield has lost one home and failed to reclaim another, though from those ashes he rose. Along those lines, in the Blue Mountains, he has created a new dwelling, yet he cannot rest until he comes back, full circle.

"I have no choice."

And it is with this that his friend leaves, and he searches. He searches, plunders, and digs with the ferocity akin to all dwarves, the spirit that has flowed through generations of his blood, and a stubbornness that is his alone.

And still he does not find.


End file.
